Little Lucy Snow was meant to be enjoying her first day at the nice elementary school in town; however a macabre twist of fate sees her enrolled instead at Miss Weaver's Academy for the Scientifically Gifted and Ethically Unfettered--also known as Hollow Fields. Located on the outskirts of Nullsville and run by the insidious Engineers, the grim boarding school dedicates itself to raising the next generation of mad scientists and evil geniuses! Classes include Live Taxidermy, Cross-Species Body-Part Transplantation and Killer Robot Construction, and for her own survival Lucy has to master them quickly...the student with the lowest grades at the end of each school week is sent to the old windmill for detention--and so far, no child has ever returned!

Rosca was one of four winners presented with Japanís first ever "International Manga Award" for her work on Hollow Fields.

I just finished the series tonight, so I'll share my thoughts while they are fresh in my mind: The pacing and the characters were excellent, and it definitely held my interest- but 2/3s of the way in it suddenly became a very obvious Fullmetal Alchemist X Harry Potter fanfiction *sweatdrop* Think, "What would it be like if LUST was the headmaster of Hogwarts!?" and you've got this story. Still, for as much as it borrows from other series, the original content is truly excellent. I think an 8/10 is fair. For those who want spoilerific justification to my rating, then read on:

Spoiler (mouse over to view)

Miss Ricketts was one of my favorite characters, and I don't like how we never find out what became of her once she was put in the child's body. I mean, I guess we're to assume that the windmill children keep her prisoner with Miss Weaver forever, but Lucy had wanted to get that child's body back, so... what happens if they do find Ricketts, with the machine being broken and everything? Also, 'Great Gears' was mentioned a few times, but never elaborated on. It was obviously a scrapped plot point, but it feels sloppy. In any case, as for the Harry Potter and FMA elements I mentioned, I don't want to be judgmental, because for all I know, the author might never have seen either one, but you'd have to be blind not to notice the Harry Potter themes - right down to the designs of the school, its uniforms, its "away from the world" nature, class structure, and orange haired Lucy being paired with dark haired Claude. Not to mention when the windmill children break loose and fly around the school in their tattered robes, it looks like a death eater scene pulled straight from the movies. As for Fullmetal Alchemist- this is more subtle, but the principle looks EXACTLY like Lust: the hair, the breasts, and the extending sharp finger nails to boot. Not to mention her "big experiment" involved transferring souls to metal objects, and other human's souls into new human bodies, even when this series is supposed to be about "Mad Science", making the swapping of brains a much more logical choice.

Lucy Snow, the prodigy of the story, ends up going to the wrong boarding school and learn the horror of detention. With the help of the talking box, she's trying to pass her class (with the making of destructive weapons and sewing two animal parts together).

What can I say? The story was fun and I enjoyed it a lot that I got myself a hardcopy of it. Artwork is splendid and you get to see her characters sketches at the end of the book. The ending can be categorized as opening ending, but it was satisfying for me, considering Lucy took care of the main problem.

This is really a fantastic, quirky series that takes you "behind the scenes" of mad scientist training, imparting wonderful pieces of advice about the best time to dig up graves and why you shouldn't have the lowest grades in your class. The "tower" gives a real sense of urgency and a definite plot to the series, and Lucy Snow is a fun, energetic heroine to have as the lead, but the series doesn't quite give you the ending, quality-wise, that I'd hoped for. Hands-down the best English "manga" on the US market today, and very nicely packaged by Seven Seas, so you really should go out and buy it if you enjoy a good plot and dark humor in the vein of Tim Burton's movies.

I love this series. The artwork is SO new! As is the plot! It's absolutely amazing, and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves Robots, Live Taxidermy, Grave robbing (as a class!), and all around little Mad scientists!!-L